


transference, noun [U]

by snsk



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Meld, Nightmares, Romance, Scent Marking, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, background sterek, otp: i trust scott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac has nightmares. Scott has a security blanket of words.</p><p>Or: </p><p>( "Now kill Scott McCall," the Master says. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	transference, noun [U]

**Author's Note:**

> warning: the relationship towards the end gets kind of unhealthy - not hardly dubcon enough to warrant a tag i think, but isaac's mind is extremely off, and his thinking gets very distorted, and i just want to state: not healthy.

Isaac holds onto Scott. The water is icy, shockingly so, and Scott's skin is warm and his heartbeat is worried. 

x

"He can suck out, like," and Stiles' eyes are big and a little bit horrified, "your will - well, not exactly suck, he can bend your will to his whims, take over the controls of your mind and make you his own personal drooling zombie slaves. He can make an army of mindless drones." He slumps into the only available seat left in Deaton's office.  

"Shit," says Derek. "Shit, we're fucked."

They're always fucked, so it's not exactly something Isaac's surprised about. Scott looks anxiously from Stiles to Derek to Deaton, but his shoulder's warm against Isaac. 

"Is there a way to fix it?" he asks. "Any way at all?"

"Not that we know of," Deaton says quietly. "It's pretty much permanent."

"Balls," Stiles says, and Isaac has to agree.  

x

"I don't understand," says Isaac, frowning. "But why is it the opposite of that? It's positive charges as well, why are they named differently, it's just confusing, is what it is."

Scott rubs at his forehead and scrunches up his eyes. "Because it's a different kind of conversion - isn't it? Is it? I think this made a lot more sense before you started asking why," he says, looking at the book frustratedly. 

"You're welcome," Isaac says cheerfully, rolling onto his back and onto the book. "'m tired, let's stop." 

He looks out of Scott's window at the darkness, tonight's crescent moon covered by a blanket of clouds. He's sleepy and running back alone isn't something he's looking forward to. It's one of those nights that will force him to remember, to curl up in a ball in his room later and try not to think about anything at all.

Scott must scent Isaac's sort-of sadness because he runs a hand through Isaac's hair, the way he'd take away a puppy's pain at Deaton's, gentle  and achingly caring. Isaac tries not to purr contentedly like a kitten, as he supposes it would be a disgrace to the name of wolf. 

"You wanna sleep over, 'zak?" Scott asks. "Could be dangerous to go back alone, what with all the-" he shrugs. "Things. Creepy mind melding things. Derek would kill me."

Isaac says, "I scream in my sleep. Sometimes."

Scott shrugs, doesn't stop carding his fingers through Isaac's curls. "Stiles snores," he says, easy. 

x

There's a girl named Riley who's in Isaac's Economics class. She's brunette and beautiful with big brown eyes and one day, a Thursday, she doesn't turn up.

On Friday she does. Isaac passes her on the way to his seat.

She looks up. Her eyes are brown and dark and blank and stare right through him.

x

Scott - Scott touches him now, like he touches Stiles, easy and affectionate and more, like he thinks Isaac needs it. He tugs at Isaac's jacket and flourishes an imaginary piano on his thigh. He slides an arm around Isaac's shoulders and constantly plays with his hair.

Touching's an important thing, for wolves: when you get turned, you hear everything, smell everything, feel everything; and something as small as showing someone your neck or resting a hand on their waist means miles more for wolves than it does for humans. 

It's scenting, is what it is. It's marking, so other people don't touch, and Isaac's not sure if Scott does it unconsciously or not - probably a mixture of both, with his general touchyfeeliness and his overshadowing need to protect, but it's a thing Isaac's not going to stop any time soon, even if he is technically in Derek's pack and the scent might be a bit off to other wolves. He's got a feeling Beacon Hills wolves are already the weirdest anyway, and what they've got sort of works, a sort of fragile-webbed solution.     

Isaac leans back into the touches: tentatively at first, because it's been a very long time, but then, eventually, dependently, craving the comfort from Scott's warmth, using it like a safety blanket. Like - finally - a solid anchor.  
        
x

"They're like - like zombies," Stiles says despairingly. "There was another one today, this kid in Math, and he did his homework to perfection last night and stared attentively at the frickin' board and everything, and I don't think I've ever actually seen him awake through an entire class before."

"I've been reading up," says Deaton, administering milk to a snake, "mind control mostly ends when you finish off the one doing the controlling."

"Finish off," Stiles says, "as in finish off dead, I presume. What a bloodthirsty little town this is."

"They're not getting into trouble or anything?" Deaton asks.

"No," Isaac says, "no, they're just - not thinking for themselves. Like they're just waiting for the next command." 

x

Scott talks about Allison less, nowadays. Her scent, the soft almost buttery smell with the fainter polished undercurrent of well-kept wood, is nearly all-faded from his skin.

He helps Isaac with Chemistry, gives him rides after school, lets Isaac sleep over even though the bed's too small for both of them (they curl up like puppies, like bracketed commas). If Isaac reaches for him in the night, thrashing and sobbing, he doesn't say anything in the morning.

Melissa makes them dinner, fusses about how skinny Isaac is, and asks them about homework and lacrosse. They all very carefully steer clear of supernatural elements: Isaac can very clearly imagine Melissa telling her son "not at the dinner table" after Scott's excited retelling of yet another supernatural showdown. They watch movies and eat popcorn and play-fight and play video games and run free through the woods and-  

It's the most solid thing Isaac's ever had, but it also feels sort of - ephemeral, huh. Like it might flit away at any moment because Isaac? Isaac and nice things, normal things, good things really do not mix, have never meshed together very well.  

x

"We got one," Derek says, "hypnotized him-" Isaac doesn't flinch, but it's a close thing, "-he said they called him the Master, and he bit them, and that's all they remember. Literally. Even the memories before are pretty hazy, of their family, friends. What they do know is the Master's voice their heads. He talked a whole lot about that. He says to do things, in their heads, and they do. They just do. It's all-encompassing, his voice. They've gotta obey. He's building an army."

"He's got big dreams," Stiles says, from the sofa. He's wearing a rumpled blue sweatshirt. Isaac wonders if he spent the night. "Take over the world kind." He scoffs. "So typical."  

x

When he was five, Isaac's mother found him about to taste some hydrochloric acid lying at the back of the lab she'd worked at as an assistant. He'd come to work with her that day because he'd felt slightly warm, not enough to warrant a day at home or a trip to the doctor's, but enough to get out of kindergarten. She'd taken her eye off him for a second. She'd slapped the bottle out of his hand.

"Don't," she'd reiterated, over and over, then picking him up and cradling him close. "Please, baby. Never again."

"Why?" Isaac wanted to know.

"It'll make you sick. Very sick. Sicker than you are now, and you won't recover."

Isaac looked at it consideringly. "It's water," he told his mother. "Water doesn't make you sick."   

So it makes sense, years later, since it's already been written and foretold: it's his curiosity that will get the better of him, eventually.

x

When Scott kisses him, Isaac is both surprised and expecting it.

They're in the woods, running, not the full moon, not even night, but running for the feeling of running, for the wind in their hair and the ache in their lungs and the feeling that they could do this forever, that they could make it to Moscow or Beijing and still not stop, not have to.

They do stop, eventually, Scott collapsing over Isaac and laughing breathlessly, saying "I won" though it hadn't been a race, propping himself up on two elbows and still laughing, still breathless, but this time against Isaac's mouth.

Isaac opens up for him, kisses him greedily back, and Scott stops being amused and tangles his hands into Isaac's hair again and they stay like that as the sun goes down and their lips are flushed and swollen and Isaac has to curl his fists inside Scott's jumper to keep them warm.

Then they go inside. Stiles makes them tea.

x

The guy had looked suspicious. Suspicious and too smiley and too new in town and just - bad feeling, bad feeling and before Isaac knew it, he'd already followed him out the grocery shop's door and onto the sidewalk, not looking down as he types a text to Scott about his location.

He follows him to an abandoned gym - termite-infected, apparently. He steps in, tentative, ready to duck out at a moments' notice -

when the doors slam shut behind him, and the guy turns to give Isaac a big smile. Isaac looks around helplessly - and it's the girl from Econ, blank stare fixed on Isaac as she lunges forward, along with five other mindlessly controlled teenagers, kids Isaac's known since grade school.

x

The shrill alarm on Scott's phone wakes them. Isaac makes a small sound of protest.

"Hi," Scott murmurs. He leans over and places his lips briefly to Isaac's clavicle.

Isaac reaches up absently to rub at a hickey on his neck which isn't there. It bothers him slightly, that he's not visually marked, not just scented, for the world to see.

Scott's looking at him with a kind of adoration which makes him flush just a little bit, so he pulls him down to lick into his mouth some more.    

x

The guy doesn't stop smiling, all polite, as he stalks over to place a caress over Isaac's ankle from where Isaac's pinned to the floor. Isaac kicks out uselessly, hardly moving.

"It'll be okay, baby," he croons, and Isaac cringes. He pushes up the denim of Isaac's jeans, and bites Isaac's calf.

There's a loud crash as the doors are kicked in, and a yell of Isaac's name. That's Scott's voice. It's Scott's voice, a few seconds too late.       

x

Stiles says, "We need to talk."

Isaac follows him apprehensively into the locker room. He's pretty sure Stiles isn't a psychotic murderer. But Stiles' scent is a hundred different things at worst and nuanced at best, his heartrate is always skittering and he's always tinged with a sort of light fear, and it's hard to figure out what he's thinking at any given point in time. Especially now when he's looking at Isaac and wearing a very serious expression, for him anyway.

"We need to talk about Scott," he tells Isaac.

"Is he in danger right now?" Isaac asks.  

Stiles stares. "No, should I be worried?" 

"Huh?"

It's a side effect of living in Beacon Hills that this is the sort of normal conversation to have in between Math and Bio in the stuffy boys' locker room with your human anchor's best friend (and probably your alpha's mate, if Isaac's on the money on this).

"This is the Talk," Stiles announces, "the break his heart and I'll break your face talk."

"Oh, my god," Isaac states, covering his eyes with his hands.

Stiles hmms, drumming a beat against Greenberg's locker. "I don't really know how it goes. Break his heart, Isaac, and I'll break your face. If he breaks your heart I'll break his face too, because look at you, you're a woodland creature. Use a condom. Or don't, do STDs work on wolves? Remind me to ask Derek about that."

"Stiles gave me a talk," Isaac tells Scott later, climbing up onto the back of Scott's dirtbike.

Scott looks apologetic. "I thought he was joking when he said he was going to, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Isaac says. "He talked about condoms for most of it."

Scott curves a hand around Isaac's neck and kisses him, quick and fond, and then he slides a leg over the bike and starts it.  

x 

At first Isaac feels nothing except the fangs withdrawing themselves from his leg. Then a complete calm starts spreading through his body, this utter wellbeing and pure peacefulness he's never felt before, there's always been some kind of threat before, pre-wolf era and after. But this, this must be what serendipity tastes like. It feels good on his tongue, heavy-happy in his brain.

Isaac can feel the Master's pleasure translating into his brain. Can hear the unspoken Good boy, like a much-needed rush of dopamine. 

x

"Now kill Scott McCall," the Master says - or rather thinks, a fear of eliminate the threat being transmitted into Isaac's neurons - and Isaac nods.

x

Isaac can actually pinpoint the first time he really notices Scott. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't when he was panicking about being discovered as a werewolf, or when Derek pointed him out and says, "he's one too, watch out for him."

The first time Isaac becomes aware of Scott as something other than somebody who's been in school with him for too long for it to matter, and who hung around with that Stilinski kid and probably thought Isaac was as weird as the rest of them did, was on the lacrosse field in ninth grade.

Isaac had been lying on the bleachers, enjoying the sun and the last few moments before he had to go home to a house that hated him, when Stiles and Scott had trooped out into the field, lacrosse sticks in their hands. Their voices had carried across the field, clear in the crisp air.

"Are you sure we won't be caught," Scott had said nervously, looking around like a wanted fugitive and fiddling with his stick.

"Relax," Stiles had said, rolling his eyes. "You wanted practice? I'm getting you practice. C'mon, I'm estimating about an hour and a half."

"Okay," Scott had said, and lifted his stick.

Scott was - easily terrible. Isaac had seen his brother play, all quick motion and sharp force, and this was clumsy, hands unused to the shape of the stick, obviously new and incredibly untrained. Added to Stiles' not-much-better goalkeeping, it made for some pretty painful watching. 

It had stuck with him, however: the determination in Scott's eyes, how he laughed at himself when he'd missed one straight through his legs, the way the late afternoon sun had lit up his hair and illuminated the awkward grip on his stick.  

Isaac hadn't said hi. Scott hadn't noticed him.

But Isaac had watched that day, and he'd kept on watching. 

x

"Isaac, don't," Scott says. "You're you, I know you're you, inside. He doesn't control you. Don't do this."

Isaac has his claws out. He knows that if he attacks, Scott will find it hard to hurt him. He knows that it'll be a weakness. He knows that it'll be extremely easy to exploit it.

"He doesn't control you," Scott begs. "Isaac, nobody controls you."

x

The first time Isaac had slept over, he'd stood around awkwardly with one hand on the back of his neck while Scott brushed his teeth, waiting for him to bring out a comforter or a mattress or something. 

Scott had come back inside, and his eyes had widened. "Are you, like, not sleepy? Do you want to do more Chem? I think I'm actually incapable of that right now."

"Um, d'you have, like-" Isaac had waved a vague hand at the bed. "Comforter, or." It was embarrassing how eleven year old girls did sleepovers better than him.

Scott had frowned. "No, I don't. You really wanna sleep on the floor? Stiles always shares the bed." 

That night Isaac had had nightmares of being locked up, of being ice cold, of thrashing, of begging. He'd woken up gasping, like he always did. Except this time there were fingers on his skin, anchoring him back to the present. There was a littany of words, sewn together like the security blanket Isaac had never had; words like: it's okay, it's okay, breathe, Isaac, you're safe, I promise, he's not here anymore, he doesn't control you, nobody can, breathe, breathe, it's safe, you're okay.

You're okay, again and again, until it's the only thing Isaac knows.  

x

Isaac turns back around, swift, and fluidly slashes his claws against the Master's neck, before any of his other zombie wolves can move, before the Master's eyes can even widen in surprise.

And then he passes out.

x

"Isaac," Scott says, "please, Isaac. Please. Please wake up. Please."

It's Scott, and he's begging. Isaac's eyes flutter open painfully. He can see Stiles and Derek standing over him. He can see the other wolves blinking, returning to their own minds. He can see Scott's worried expression change into relief. Which is what's most important.

Then Scott gasps.

"His eyes," he says to everyone and no-one in particular, "they're still- they're still like that, the rest are okay, why are his still blank? Who's he following?"

He's not asking Isaac, but Isaac will answer, because Scott asked.

"You," Isaac says, easy. "Always you." 

x

They're still looking for a cure, apparently some gone-wrong shift in the Master's still-fresh mind meld which had latched onto the person most important in Isaac's mind, but Isaac's less than bothered.

His life is pretty much back as it was before. Homework and SATs are Important Things now, and so are applications to college. Peter's declared he needs a holiday from this shit, Stiles comes around a lot, Derek's been painting the loft, and Isaac's been helping.

Scott doesn't kiss him much now, they'd talked about it - well, Scott had talked, and Isaac had agreed, because what else could he do? it was what Scott had wanted -, talked about it sitting on the mossy forest floor with Scott looking pained and earnest, big brown eyes needing Isaac to understand. If he kissed him, Scott had said, it wouldn't be Isaac wanting to kiss him, it would be Scott wanting Isaac to kiss him, and even if Isaac wanted it too, Scott's wants would be all mixed up with Isaac's and it would be all messy and badwrong and complicated, Isaac, I can't.

Isaac had nodded.

"Okay," he'd said, and that still hadn't seemed to make Scott happy: he could hear his soft sigh, still feel the worry in his brain.

But sometimes Isaac kisses him, because he can't help but not, when Scott's around him. He's pretty sure that's all him, the want for Scott, always there, a never fading bruise, but Scott may have a point, his wants and Scott's are all mixed up anyway.

He's, yeah. Less than bothered. It all feels the same, he can just feel Scott's emotions more, an odd thought or two. His life had pretty much revolved around Scott before this anyway. Isaac is fine with this, even if the rest aren't, even if they keep glancing over at him worriedly and poring through the same books over and over again for a way to fix this.

He kisses him sometimes, and Scott kisses back, like he can't not.    

There's still Scott's voice in his mind, overshadowing all the rest, all the tiny noises that seem so unimportant now. And that, like Isaac said, he's, he is - he's fine with.  

x

It's ice cold in his nightmares, flashes of a life Isaac would rather not remember, but he reaches out and grabs onto Scott.

Scott lets him.

x

**Author's Note:**

> whispers comment?
> 
> if i missed out a warning or a typo or a detail or something just really bugs you please tell me


End file.
